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A Glastonbury Romance
A Glastonbury Romance | John Cowper Powys
9 posts | 1 read | 1 reading | 1 to read
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quote
Bookwomble
A Glastonbury Romance | John Cowper Powys
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"Thought is a real thing. It is a live thing. It creates; it destroys; it begets; it projects its living offspring. Like certain forms of physical pain thoughts can take organic shapes. They can live and grow and generate, independently of the person in whose being they originated."

Graywacke Great quote! 1y
25 likes1 comment
quote
Bookwomble
A Glastonbury Romance | John Cowper Powys
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"He was secretly proud that this child of his sturdy Quantock loins had made the son of the great Marquis of P. a shamefaced wittol."

Well, I never knew there was a specific word for that! ?

blurb
Bookwomble
A Glastonbury Romance | John Cowper Powys
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When I first tried this book 10 years ago, I read 299 of its 1,120 pages. I've just exceeded that with 313 pages, leaving another 806 to complete, being a further 72% of the total, or 360,000 more of its approximately 500,000 words.
None of these statistics convey how rich a reading experience it is. I've read nothing else like it, though the cover blurb comparison with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy feels entirely just, even if Powys is his own writer.

Graywacke Curious what this is like and how it goes for you. 2y
Bookwomble @Graywacke It's difficult to summarise, but I'd rate it 6/5! At 28% in, I guess there's time for it to impose, but it's still going strong at this point. It's a literary crime that Powys isn't a national hero, and that his books are no longer in print! I assume it's because the text is difficult in many ways - extended descriptions of landscape, personality, psychology, a single thought or emotional reaction might take several pages of deposition. 2y
Bookwomble @Graywacke And the animistic conception of nature as being alive and intentional, mixed with soap opera relationships and generally unsympathetic characters, who Powys still manages to make you care about. When published, his frankness about sexual desire and unconventional romantic and social relationships must have been rather shocking. I'm loving it! (Sorry for gushing 😁) 2y
Graywacke @Bookwomble you‘re getting me excited. 😂 Seriously, I only know Powys (or Powis?) by name and occasional fervent readers. I think it‘s time I check him out. 2y
Bookwomble @Graywacke It's sometimes written Powis, but Powys is correct. I doubt anybody would call this book "OK", you either love or loathe it, I think. Hopefully the former ? 2y
37 likes5 comments
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Bookwomble
A Glastonbury Romance | John Cowper Powys
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"There are levels of feminine emotion in the state of love entirely and forever unknown to men."

quote
Bookwomble
Glastonbury Romance (Revised) | John Cowper Powys
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“There are only two mortal sins in the world; one of these is to be cruel and the other is to possess, and they are both destructive of happiness.”

bibliothecarivs I saved this quote. Thanks for sharing it. 2y
Bookwomble @bibliothecarivs You're welcome 😊 I have to restrain myself from posting swathes of Powys's text! 2y
26 likes2 comments
blurb
Bookwomble
Glastonbury Romance (Revised) | John Cowper Powys
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I love it when different reading overlaps and mutually informs. Powys's characters inhabit a living environment in which the English trees, rocks, rivers and even the mud forming the river bed are all inhabited by a living animus with thoughts, feelings and influences. I've just finished a chapter titled The River in which the being of MC John Crow temporarily merges with a riverside willow tree shoot.
The latest edition of #NewInternationalist 👇

Bookwomble ...focuses on rivers, and this article talks of how the indigenous Kukama people of Peru (amongst others) view the Marañón River as person with rights which they are seeking to get recognised in law to protect it from ongoing extractive exploration and pollution.
Powys seems to express a Deist view of natural religion, which I'm also reading about in the tagged, so I've an interlinked feeling 🕸️
2y
32 likes1 comment
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Bookwomble
Glastonbury Romance (Revised) | John Cowper Powys
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“Don't let me ever compete with anyone! If I'm a worm and no man, let me enjoy my life as a worm. Let me stop showing off to anyone... Let me live my life free from the opinions, good or bad, of all other people!”

Bookwomble Although this could come across as narcissistic or, perhaps, defeatist, I feel Powys is rather saying that being in tune with one's self, of not feeling constrained by or having to meet the arbitrary standards of others helps us to experience life as our natural, authentic self. It's not to disregard others, but to be who we are in relation to others. 2y
The_Book_Ninja I like🙌🏼 2y
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja Me, also 🙂 It resonates 💓 2y
14 likes3 comments
quote
Bookwomble
Glastonbury Romance (Revised) | John Cowper Powys
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"At the striking of noon on a certain fifth of March, there occurred within a causal radius of Brandon railway station and yet beyond the deepest pools of emptiness between the uttermost stellar systems one of those infinitesimal ripples in the creative silence of the First Cause which always occur when an exceptional stir of heightened consciousness agitates any living organism in this astronomical universe."
The first sentence of a 1120 page...

Bookwomble ... book, which continues in this vein. I'm a slow reader anyway, but this one is going to take a while! 2y
Graywacke It‘s a lovely first sentence. Powys - someday for me. 2y
Cathythoughts Wow 😮 that‘s some first sentence 2y
Bookwomble @Graywacke It is lovely, and even when Powys turns his attention to mundane concerns, these images and impressions lie behind and alongside them. 2y
22 likes4 comments
blurb
Bookwomble
A Glastonbury Romance | John Cowper Powys
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Having spent a good chunk of the weekend watching Glastonbury on TV, I was reminded that 10 years ago I paused reading this 1120 page monster at 299. As we're going away for a few days to the bookshop desert that is Anglesey, I thought I'd take this as back up against the inevitable rain-ins. I'll have to start from the beginning, though.
Bookmark is from Wookey Hole, a tourist attraction with a central plot role.

TrishB I have watched a lot too- my son is there and sending me plenty of updates. I always love the thought, just not the camping etc etc 2y
Bookwomble @TrishB Yeah, I'm not good with crowds and filth, so the couple of non-Glastonbury festivals I've attended are fine for me 😁 I hope your son's enjoying it. What acts have you enjoyed watching? Mine have been IDLES, Jesus and Mary Chain, Jack White and Courtney Barnett. Still a few acts I want to see on catch up. Oh, and Paul McCartney, of course - I shed a tear when he duetted with the recording of John 🥲 2y
TrishB IDLES were fab. Fontaines DC, Jack White was great. I loved Billie Elish snd Lorde. I have just enjoyed the Pet Shop Boys too 😁 some great choices covering every taste. 2y
Bookwomble @TrishB I will definitely watch Fontaines DC. They clashed with someone my wife wanted to watch, but I heard enough that I'll catch them. Primal Scream and Róisín Murphy are on my list, too. We saw Róisín at one of the festivals we went to, and she was fantastic. 2y
Bookwomble @TrishB IDLES were fab, but also very sweaty and snotty! The stage security staff must have had flob running down the back of their necks 😄 2y
29 likes5 comments